#1 The US Terrorism Plot That the Media Ignores
Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:07 pm
I just found an interesting article.
It seems the media don't give too much attention to the America's far-right terrorism. The question is: why?In May 2003, white supremacists in Texas were caught with a sodium cyanide bomb, other bombs, illegal weapons, hate literature, fake I.D., and chemicals, including hydrochloric acid and nitric acid. In mid-November, three people pleaded guilty to related charges, while seized documents indicate that there are other co-conspirators at large. The feds have served "hundreds of subpoenas across the country," and the plot has been included in the President's daily intelligence briefings.
But most of us have never heard about it. The only media that saw fit to report about this terrorist plot within the US were a few newspapers and TV stations in Texas. The Web-based news outlet WorldNetDaily ran a story about it, but Google News shows that there hasn't been a word in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or any other big media outlet. Why have the media decided that this is a non-story? It's hard to say, but we can say with certainty that if Muslims had been caught with these weapons of mass destruction, fake I.D., gas masks, and books on making explosives, it would've been front-page news for days.
Below, we've collected every article about this ignored plot that we could find. All images come from CBS 11 in Dallas/Fort Worth.
Update: Seven months after the arrests and one month after the guilty pleas, the New York Times finally saw fit to mention this domestic terrorism caseāin an opinion piece that spends three paragraphs on the incident. Fortunately, the writer's central point is a good one:
Americans should question whether the Justice Department is making America's far-right fanatics a serious priority.... It is also worrisome that the discovery of lethal chemicals in President Bush's home state was not deemed occasion for a high-profile announcement by Attorney General John Ashcroft or other officials trumpeting the arrests of Mr. Krar and his compatriots. This stands in stark contrast to the department's news media onslaughts whenever alleged operatives for Al Qaeda have been apprehended in the United States.
On the downside, he doesn't mention the media's complicity by ignoring an extremely important story. Will the media only cover terrorism if Ashcroft mugs for the cameras about it? [16 Dec 2003]